Archive for the ‘Suki’ Category

Well I think winter is here to stay in the northland. We finally had some snowfall Halloween weekend and it promptly blew away after two straight days of wind with 55mph gusts (did I mention how miserable that kind of wind is!?) Anyway, we had a beautiful fall, full of sunshine and color, albeit too short for my liking. There have been so many things to squeeze in and prepare for winter’s coming so it has been quite busy around here.

I’ll recap some of the highlights:

We celebrated Suki’s 2nd birthday on September 6th and her first year in our home shortly thereafter. We woke her up from her morning slumber with too many presents; I think she was a bit overwhelmed. It was a day of gifts including treats, bones, toys and her favorite squeaky balls.

We enjoyed a visit from Wayne’s mom Kathy and her friend Soni for two weeks in September. They came to help celebrate the wedding of my brother in-law Randy to his new wife and with this the Jenski family promptly grew in number with the addition of five new nieces and nephews into the Jenski family.

I tucked my bees in for winter which involved a series of steps including regular feedings of sugar water, insulating their homes and relocating adjacent the house. I’ll post some photos and details later.

We enjoyed lots of foraging and learned to identify quite a few plants and fungus this fall. A trip to Girdwood for Fungus Fair 2011 gave us a proper introduction to the world of fungus and we even sauteed up our first loot of mushrooms, a variety called “angel wings”. I learned to dye material with fungus while Wayne learned to propagate oyster mushrooms; he took home a spore filled bag and I took home two hand dyed scarves and a new-found hobby of natural dyeing. We picked high bush cranberries, wild blueberries and raspberries from our backyard and made up some yummy jams while I proceeded to collect other goodies for various tinctures and dye projects. I also learned about and made some yummy fermented foods which are so very very good for you. More on these adventures to come!

We also celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary with a trip south to Valdez. Lots of hiking, sightseeing, glaciers, wildlife and time together. I’ll post pictures of that trip soon too.

Last month we had over 75 people in our house as part of the Palmer Art Council’s underground tour in which Wayne’s plants took center stage. He also completed a series of botanical illustrations of recently discovered carnivorous plants for a book that was just recently published and is working on three more for another upcoming book. Our local paper, the Frontiersman is schedule to come over for an interview with him tomorrow morning and he continues giving lectures to classrooms. So as you can see, he is quite busy with his plant hobby.

I’ve religiously attended belly dancing and yoga class for over a month now and am really starting to improve on the dance front which is really exciting. And for the record I haven’t cut my hair since JUNE! Working towards a few things on my 30×30 list….

Spring time is grilling time! We got our bbq late last year but now we are ready and going at it this spring, making the most of outdoor cooking! We’ve been enjoying mediterranean grilled chicken, bbq tofu, mushroom and rice burgers, black bean burgers and lots of grilled veggies. We’ll keep on experimenting with all kinds of things!

Another winter outing, this time to the top of Lazy Mountain. I still can’t for the life of me figure out why it is called that because it definitely isn’t a lazy climb! This is to the first point, which everyone knows as the “picnic table”. You can quite the view from up here. This quickly became our favorite winter spot- close to town, a good work out and do able within a decent amount of time. I’ve never measured but I think it probably takes 1.5 hours to ascend and 5 minutes (yes, FIVE) to get back down. I throw on my snowpants and slide down the whole way. Incredibly terrifying and thrilling! Even more so on a sled and in the dark with headlamps! We had one run in with a moose up there this winter which was a little scary.

Pictures from one of our outing this past winter at the Crevasse Moraine trailhead. We met up with our niece Bayli and her husky Yugo for a nice walk through the woods. It was a beautiful and sunny day out and the dogs had a fun time running! Yugo passed put on the way home….rear in the rear and head on the armrest in front!

Our little Suki-monster showing her sweet side (top) and her wild rambunctious side (bottom). It is hard to believe we’ve had her over two months now! She has been enjoying running around in the snow and especially likes sticking her nose in it to smell for little critters and gobbling up mouthfuls while she runs. She is quite the character!

Yes…more pictures of our baby! It has been quite fun having a doggie companion and one of the best things is that it gets us out of the house; not that we don’t like getting out but we are both prone to being homebodies. We’ve gotten into the habit of at least two weekday outings after work and some type of fun weekend outing. The pictures above are from our walk in the Crevasse-Moraine trail system.

We’ve been working on her “recall” ability, letting her roam off-leash as much as possible and she’s done pretty well so far. We did get quite the scare this week though, when headed back to the car (less than 200 yards) from a long walk she took off into the woods and didn’t come back. After a few minutes of calling her we heard a commotion behind us and a really big male moose was booking it down the trail with Suki at his heels. We quickly followed but they were long gone. We had to follow the tracks back into the woods for over a mile, relentlessly calling “Suki” and fearing the worse. To make matters worse it was getting dark fast and we would have to turn back soon. Luckily she appeared on the trail heavily panting and amazingly unharmed. The moose probably outrun her in the end, but that’s not what always happens. Needless to say, she was in the dog house for most of the night. She won’t get the privilege of going off-leash for quite a while now!

Welcome

A girl grows up. She becomes a city dweller. She fights for a seat on the bus and a good parking spot. She misses the moutains. And open space. She packs up and hits the road. She sees the States. And Canada. She arrives in Alaska. The mountains are big and the sky is blue. She decides to stay. A blog is born.